Returning to my roots...

It’s been a long time since I have blogged, but after a series of changes, flips and turns I find myself in a space where I need my mind to be free and I need to be creative with my words. If not as a hobby, then to keep me sane.
Returning to the reason I created my blog in the first place- I called it ‘a place to store my ramblings’ and that’s what I intend to do.
So rather than diving in and doing some kind of ‘I’ve been great...’, ‘I live here...’, ‘I work here...’ speech, I thought I’d start with a reflection.
I’m searching for who I am, what I want, what I need to achieve and sometimes, the best way to find that is to think about where it all started. So that’s what I shall do. Let’s start from the beginning. I’ll take you on a journey through my childhood.

I was born on October 12th 1991. I had thick dark hair and was born with big brown eyes after putting my mother through a horrendous labour. At the time my mum was a skinny punk goddess, with cropped hair and a nose stud. She was cool. She was young and she was a funky mum- much younger than the rest. 
I was a chubby baby wearing frilly knickers that little old ladies used to go mad for when mum took me out down town. We spent a bit of time just the two of us, until my step dad, Reuben came along. 

Skip a few years and my brother was born. He is called Harley aka Harlequinn. Quinny. Pooface. Greasy Joes… just a few names to date.

Thinking back, he was my best friend in the whole world.

(Just to confirm he also called me names... 'Fail-whale' being his favourite. I'll leave you to wonder what that was about...)

Nearly every day after tea, we would end up in a fight because we’d been playing the diamond game. It was a stupid game which involved us sitting on the floor with our feet spread wide and feet touching making a diamond shape. I’d make a sound or bang the floor and my brother would copy me. Then we would be silly, then I’d probably pinch him or chuck the remote at his nose and then we would be pulled apart and shouted at for destroying yet another peaceful household evening.

Then there was the playdough café game we played.. Harley would have a café and so would I. I had some weird obsession about post offices at the time (leading to one of my most favourite jobs working the counter in Lyme Regis for several years as a weekend job!). So I actually had a post office counter kit complete with stamps, and a little window and fake money. So my café/post office combination was obviously better. We would sell our café goods to mum and dad… and I would be horrible to him. Hence the name ‘Greasy Joe’s’ because obviously his playdough burgers were minging!

I didn't have the generic Barbie and Ken. I had a Michael Jackson doll that sang ‘Black or White’ when you pressed his back. It would be worth some serious dollar by now but I think I shifted it at a boot sale. I also had a Shane from Boyzone doll complete with a cream knitted jumper, swept back black hair and an earring. Then add in a mix of Army men and the dolly gang was complete. Harley’s Action Men used to arrive in their jeep complete with machine gun, pick up punk Barbie (her head looked like a loo brush and I’d given her rainbow streaks with felt tip pens) and Princess Barbie and then they’d go off on an adventure- which usually involved Harley shooting them all dead. Chuck in the fact that I had a bright pink Barbie campervan, pets, an Esmerelda dressed like a gypsy from the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Mulan complete in full Chinese dress- it was a very multi-cultural affair.

I was naughty but I was clever. I was like a badly behaved version of Matilda at times. I was a nerd at school. And when we had a babysitter, I used to spend all my time sat on her knee whilst she picked words from the newspaper for me to spell. I even told people I was going to become the Prime Minister.

I was crap at anything physical. At my first sports day, I stood with my hands on my hips, stomped my foot and point blank refused to do a forward roll. And to be honest, that’s the way I stayed.

I liked to write poetry and add up and write stuff. I would play schools and be the teacher so I could do the register. I’d make sure my favourite people were good and had excellent grades and smiley face stickers on their exercise books and the people who weren’t my friends would always be late or off sick and they would get their spellings wrong.

We have moved house… A LOT. Like 30 times or something ludicrous. I will save the moving stories for another blog though as I could write a novel about the houses I have lived in. But of course that means I went to a few schools. I started school in Paignton. I remember walking there and I was so little. Only in reception. Mum would be pushing Harley in the buggy up the hill with her long red hair and skinny waist and mummy duffle coat. The hill had a big main road alongside it but the on other side was a hedge which always hissed and buzzed with grasshoppers and I was always really scared of walking that bit of the journey. I always used to tell my friends that I could hear the lions from Paignton Zoo too, but I don’t know if I made that up in my tiny brain at the time.

I went to Beer Primary School twice. Once when I was teeny and once from Year 5 until secondary school. It was the best and I loved it. We had a brilliant teacher who was a bit mad. He used to make this holy humming noise as we walked in and place his hands together in prayer position bowing. He let us listen to Jamiroquai all the time and played guitar and joked around and he was really cool.

It was a tiny school and I remember so much from those times. 

We sang C of E songs and there were only four classes in the whole school. I still remember the smell that used to give me butterflies and make me nervous when I came back from having a holiday. And the white brick walls surrounding the netball court surrounded in fog in the winter on top of the hill. The sound of the cannon that fired on Remembrance Day. The deep blue sweaters with mustard yellow writing. The sticky floors of the school hall and the foody smells that wafted when you moved the gymnastic mats.

One time we went on a residential trip to the New Forest and a donkey ate my sports bag with the fudge and postcard in it that I bought for my mum. That was a bad day.

Another time, I twirled the hands around really fast on the school clock in our classroom and they broke off. I hid it on the shelf under lots of books and my teacher found it. He made us all stay in for the rest of the week every lunchtime until someone owned up. But I never did. That was a bad week.

This one time I tried to show off at a BBQ by jumping off a wall onto a bouncy hopper. Obviously it was an epic fail and the wondrous backflip didn’t happen- I still have a massive scar on my knee to prove it.

Maybe its because I have moved a lot. Or maybe I’m just sensitive. But I always got homesick. And I still do. As soon as I am somewhere unfamiliar- a new job, a hotel room, on holiday, somewhere out of the ordinary- I find something that’s part of my every day that I can miss. My tummy goes into washing machine mode and my throat clams up and I have a funny lump in my throat that means if I even cough I might cry. So sleepovers weren’t a great deal for me even though I wanted to be a grownup. And neither was staying away.

We went to church. My Grandad was the pastor and my Uncle is now. To me, church is family. Its the staples we were fed on and it is something that I will forever respect and understand. I don't go to church anymore, but I do still feel at home when I am there. The hymns. Grandad jogging energetically around the front of the service. Nigel playing the trumpet. You may or may not believe, but for me, its more than that. Crossroads is a safety net and so familiar that it grounds me and reminds me of family.

My favourite author was Jacqueline Wilson.

My favourite band was S Club 7- I had a lime green bedroom with a Winnie the Pooh border and S Club merchandise for a while. So of course my favourite TV programme was also S Club related- Miami 7, LA 7, Hollywood 7. These really cringe but amazing BBC children’s TV programmes they made. 

I liked the Rugrats, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen films, Lizzie Maguire, Byker Grove and Tracy Beaker. I had karaoke in my room and I liked to sing. My favourite memory is when we all used to sing ‘Caucus race’ Von Trapp style- the whole family just to be silly- in our pyjamas because we could.

Of course this was 20 plus years ago for me. But I remember these times as the happiest of my whole life. We don’t live at home anymore. We are grown-ups. Harley has been travelling and is the coolest, most popular person I know. He has tattoos and is tall and handsome and everyone wants to be his friend. I doubt he would count me as his best friend now or if in fact he ever did. But in my eyes, I think we were definitely best friends at the time. I hold on to those days, when he was freckly and chubby and had little round glasses and he needed his big sister and begged me to play. They were the best times of my life and I thank God every day that a brother like Harley was given to me :)  What precious moments they were.

'We must not forget our roots or let the grind of every day define who we are. Hold on to memories, because they remind you of another time and allow you to escape to a former you- another chapter of your life that makes you tick.'